Simulation of Rutting Behavior of Asphalt Pavement Based on Real Temperature Field

By taking into account the temperature fields as field variables in the rutting simulation and defining the mechanical parameters as the function of temperature variable, the rutting simulation method with consideration of consecutive temperature variation could be developed in ABAQUS. This method can be used to address the short-term behavior of pavement rutting and is more reasonable and effective for rutting prediction. And based on temperature field analysis and laboratory material tests of pavement, the reasonable simulation model and method considering consecutive temperature variance was used to study the effect of exterior factors (temperature and load) on rutting of asphalt pavement and to analyze the behavior of rutting under different temperature and loading. The results show that, (1) the rutting analysis closer to the field condition can be simulated using the simulation method considering consecutive temperature variation; (2) rutting usually occurs at the average daily air temperature of 20 degrees or higher, and the higher the average daily air temperature, the longer the time with the potential of rutting occurrence; (3) under the same temperature condition and accumulated loading time, rutting depth increases roughly linearly with the increasing contact pressure, while the increase will have more chance to be nonlinear on condition of overloading; (4) through regulating traffic (especially low-speed and overloading) to avoid its appearance at the high-temperature period of time, the rutting potential will be significantly reduced.